1- For the 4th consecutive year, the #8/#9 games were a sweep. The #8 seeds swept in this tourney and in in '00, while the #9 seeds swept in '99 and '01. I picked all the #8's to win, which about the only thing that I got right for all my reading! :)

2- I picked 3 upsets in the #7/#10 games. The #7's won in all three games. Yep, the one I didn't pick was an upset! :(

3- The #5/#12 games offered 3 upsets. I didn't get any of those right either. Indiana was my lone correct #5 pick.

4- I think next year, I'll pick all the higher seeds in the First round. That entry is doing much better. I'm lousy at picking upsets! :p

Congrats to all those who picked a few upsets correctly! Good job! ;)

I made the mistake of showing my picks to my kids. They disagreed with me and even though they do not follow basketball very close, also made picks. They are doing great and I am having my worst year EVER!!! They have been having a heyday with my scores and of course had to call my friends and grandpa and grandma, (my parents and avid fans!)
Oh well I should have known better.............

The good news: None of my final four teams lost in the NCAA tourney.

The bad news: My final four is North Carolina, Georgetown, Louisville and Purdue.

You think that's bad?

I picked Alcorn State to win the whole thing - I was out of the running before Thursday's opening tip :)

The key to winning in our bracket contest will most certainly lie in the Elite 8 and beyond. So far I still have 13/16 teams in my Sweet 16 and 8/8 in my Elite 8. That could quickly change with Bama losing to Kent State. I did pick Mizzou as a Sweet 16 team, looks pretty smart right now, they thumped Ohio State.

I just suck at these sort of things. No excuses. Maybe I should have spent more time at picking the games, but I don't think it would have mattered. I thought the kid from Pitt was out and they roll!!! I also listned too much to that howler monkey Dick Vitale about the mid major conferences and I got smoked with Gonzaga,Pepperdine and Marquette. After watching the Big Ten all year I didn't trust any of the teams to win more than one game. I'll keep watching, though. The games have been exciting. Maybe I'll get the 6th grade bracket right at the next kids tournament!

Here's a musing about the officiating.

All of the crews I saw were good (best crew, IMHO, being in the 8/9 game of Wisconsin/St. John's - R Scott Thornley and U's Mark Reischling and Rick Randall - from my perfect vantage point and perfect rules knowledge, they didn't miss a single call) with some being a bit better at certain calls, positionings, and signals than others. The tie that I found bound them all was communication - no matter how good/bad the call was or what the game situation was, all three officials knew what was going on and relayed that information to each other.

BTW, for those who asked (TH), I was in media relations, and my main job was preparing pre-game lists of projected starters and game officials (after the coaches and CBS, I was the first to know who was officiating each game!!) and distributing that to the media. After that, I got to watch lots of the games - I was two rows behind the scorer's table, right behind one of the team benches.

Also, a question for any of you NCAA guys. All of the officials at the tourney have the NCAA logo on their chest. Do the officials sew/press these on to their own shirts or does the NCAA provide brand new shirts?

Mark,
The NCAA logo is a self sticking patch that is removable.